China tapped a part of its resources

BEIJING: China has vast untapped energy reserves but needs the expertise and investment to locate the new resources, state press said Monday even as China expand's its search for energy overseas.

Zhang Hongtao, deputy director of the China Geological Survey, an institute with the Ministry of Land and Resources, said thorough geological surveys have only been conducted over a small part of China's territory, the China Daily reported.

"Major findings are expected soon," Zhang was quoted as saying at an investment forum in China's northeast Shandong province. "We are very hopeful China will overcome the energy bottleneck (it faces) by tapping its own mineral resources," he said.

"I believe China is still a nation with plenty of options. We have reason to be confident of finding new resources."

The comments come as China faces strong opposition in the United States over its state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp.'s (CNOOC) aggressive 18.5 billion-dollar bid for US oil company Unocal.

China's rapid economic development has increased its dependency on oil, making the country a net importer and the world's second largest consumer after the United States. China's oil imports last year jumped 35 percent as flagging domestic production failed to keep up with booming domestic demand.

The government is convinced China has rich untapped oil deposits, such as in Xinjiang province in its northwest region, but has yet to extract the resources largely because of geological difficulties and insufficient know-how and technology.

If CNOOC succeeds in buying Unocal, China would gain access to technology to dig far deeper underground than it can now, a US lawmaker has said. At the investment forum, Chinese officials appealed to China's Asian neighbors for regional "investment cooperation" in the energy field to "build an energy security framework," the China Daily said.

Major cooperation projects are likely to include the development of oil and gas resources, pipeline construction, fundraising for energy projects and technology exchanges, Zhou Dadi, director of the National Development and Reform Commission's energy research institute, said in the report.